Following are excerpts from a recent conversation among Chen Guangcheng, the blind legal activist who was recently permitted to leave China and is currently a distinguished visitor at New York University School of Law; Jerome A. Cohen, Professor of Law and Co-Director of the US-Asia Law Institute at the NYU School of Law, who was active in securing Chen Guangcheng’s release;
As political wrangling in Hong Kong continues over changes to how the city’s chief executive will be selected in 2017, Beijing marks the 25th anniversary of the promulgation of the Hong Kong Basic Law the Special Administrative Region’s constitutional document. A recurring theme both in the electoral reform debate and in the Basic Law celebrations has been the supposed novelty
Last week, as the world watched the student demonstrations in Hong Kong, China’s Politburo announced the dates for the Communist Party’s annual plenary session would be from October 20-23. As in previous years, top leaders will gather in Beijing to set out a broad policy framework that will guide the work of Party and government authorities over the coming year. This year’s
For almost three months in late 2014, what came to be known as the Umbrella Movement amplified Hong Kong’s bitter struggle for the democracy its people were promised when China assumed control of the territory from Britain in 1997. Originally a civil disobedience movement led by Occupy Central with Love and Peace, the pro-democracy movement began on September 28 when
In a recent essay, “How China’s Leaders Will Rule on the Law,” Carl Minzner looks at the question of why China’s leaders have announced they will emphasize rule of law at the upcoming Chinese Communist Party plenum slated to take place in Beijing October 20-23. Why have Party leaders chosen
now to discuss the law? The Editors